The Thatcher of Mistrendur

This story is set up in Jade Garden on the middle island of the Mistrendur near the waterfall.

It will be set up till the end of October:

It is told by 5 ghost npcs. Go have a gander.

The Thatcher of Mistrendur

We share knowledge of the events that night in Jade Garden to remind ourselves that no matter how insignificant or unlikely, every act of bravery has an effect that gives meaning to our sacrifices.

Each Autumn as this tale is passed from the ancient to the very young, generation after generation, huddled around hearths and campfires, its story is oft remembered in nightmares and whispered in yarns passed in misery from one to another in prisons and pubs throughout the lands of New Britannia all throughout the yearly cycles. So, settle in and get comfortable for tonight you too will learn the story of the thatcher who made a difference.

***

 

No one could have stopped what happened that end of autumn night at the base of the cold jagged mountaintops in the middle of the spine of the Mistrendur Island mountain chain. Terror stole the very breath from the breast of every being, asleep or awake, at the bleakest hour before time was written into the present. Thick fog that flowed through the mountains that night brought bleak damp and a freezing chill that would not be satisfied with even the warmest of fires. Families had drawn together for comfort and warmth but lay shivering and frightened.

It was the screaming that tore at the strings of the living.

Like all the others in the few small homes clustered near the river’s crossing, the thatcher’s family woke as one with a start. Several blood curdling shrieks pierced even the thickest of walls shrouded with the plushest of tapestries, and here in their home the sound was deafening and full of despair and pain.

Thunk.

Thunk.

 

Thunk.

Thunk.

If anyone had opened a shutter just a sliver to try to catch a glimpse, they would have sighted them across the river; lumbering shadow forms nearly as tall as any building in the holding, driven by eight riders. Few had dared even this small peek, indeed most of those who heard the howl burrowed deep into the darkest hiding spots they could find in their homes, covering the mouths of frightened children and stifling their own moans of terror.

Rather than join her frightened husband at their shuttered window, the quick thinking thatcher’s wife Aoife (ee-fa) quietly bundled their two small children into the too small hiding hole under the floorboards and those little ones sunk themselves into the shadowy corners out of sight hugging each other for warmth and comfort with their mother’s whispered warning and a kiss on each of their foreheads their last memories of home before complete darkness surrounded them.

 

The best among the few in the small holding stood inside their homes trembling, with brooms, hammers, or pitchforks grasped tightly in shaking hands; ready to protect their own. Those ones who stood thus were convinced that they would likely die this night in the bloodbath of battle. They knew from what they had seen outside when they peeked. And they knew by what they heard in the dark.

Across the river, heavy chains binding the monsters to each other rattled and clanked with each passing thud of a foot fall.

The thatcher took a deep breath and peeked out again. Across the riverbank through the swirling fog eight riders wearing flowing armor that sucked the very darkness out of night into itself, herded a double line of eight tortured creatures.

Those brutalized creatures were unable to speak words, nor free themselves from the blows raining down upon them from the whips, poles, and flails that silent riders did not spare. Locked in massive iron links and chained one to another, shrieking and howling the pain and anguish that tore at the very air they knew no kindness.

 

Cian (kee-an) Thatcher’s own fear surged in immediate response. He spied on them trudging miserably through thick wet fog; forced by whip and threat along the bank of the river toward the low wooden bridge connecting this side of the river with the side the creatures were lumbering along.

Through the swirling fog and across the river, he could see and feel the silhouettes getting closer to the wobbly wooden bridge. And closer. Now he could see the dark blood flowing down their writhing bodies in rivulets from wounds inflicted relentlessly by ruthless riders on restless inky warhorses. As the screaming shapes slogged along the riverside they left stained puddles of oozing gore in their wake that seeped into the flowing water of the river and hissed as it merged into the fresh stream of water.

 

Cian Thatcher peeked again, after having taken down his grandfather’s old sword from above the hearth. His Grandfather had fought in the Battles of Highvale all those long years ago. It did not lay comfortably in Cian’s hands, but he grasped the hilt with some determination in his manner. This time he spied the looming hulks had balked at the river crossing. There was a disturbance at the carpenters’ place across the river, and more screeching. The riders circled around their captives and rode closer and closer beating and flailing the screaming things.

After the poor creatures were whipped and goaded enough into finally crossing the rippling river at the unstable bridge they soon lost all fear of their keepers. Their fear of the water was overcome by the pain inflicted upon them. The tortured needed no further goading. If nothing else, they finally understood their only chance of survival was to cross the water. Now closer to the holding, the creatures could sense and smell the delightful little squishy humans just ahead of them. It overpowered every other thought in their brains. This scent was exhilarating. It was a tempting odor for starved beasts beyond their ability to care for anything but their own selves. The building nearest the bridge, the blacksmiths’ place was straight ahead.

 

With his forbearers battered sword now in trembling hand and the leather bracers that he wore to sew fishing netting tightly lashed to his arms, Cian dared another look out the window. What he saw was pandemonium. After bashing the walls of the blacksmith’s home to smithereens, the chained and ravenous monsters flowed as one into the next building, the bakers’ business. Here again petrified screams told of torture and death. Moving like a swarm, the hulks hunted not as one, but as several individuals that could not escape each other. No one was spared. Each vicious attack on his neighbors had brought a deeper sense of dread to the thatcher. The butcher died quickly.

Cian had witnessed these creatures approaching closer and closer and now he smelled them, too. Their stench cut through the fire, smoke, and other odors of the destroyed. It was vile.

 

His home was next. He could see fear in the piercing gaze of Aoife from the corner where she was smoothing the rug over their secret hiding hole. The spell of protection she had cast would hold for most of the night. He knew her heart thumped for the young lives who lay alone and cold in the dark below. She looked up at Cian as she set down her old family staff and drew her little dagger from its sheath. Aoife Thatcher mouthed “I love you” to the man who stood with sword by the window. And he returned the same silent vow to her, his very heart exploding with dread. He knew who the knife was for. Their mutual horror would not stop either of those brave souls from acting with courage this fateful night, regardless of the inescapable outcome they both knew was upon them.

Thunk.

Thunk.

 

This time he did not just peek quickly. Instead, he flung the shutters wide open. He could see the riders now struggling to control the captives as they tried to again move them along the bank of the stream but their weapons no longer had any effect on the disfigured creatures. Blood lust and hunger had overtaken them. The monsters continued tearing dead villagers apart limb by limb and sinking their sharp teeth into still warm soft flesh.

They could no longer be dissuaded by force. The riders had completely lost control of their charges. With a single horn’s sounding and alerting our thatcher, he caught just out of the corner of his eyes, the eight riders withdrawing into the surrounding night’s thick fog: leaving the large beasts to their feasting. Destruction raged on.

Here is the moment where everything changed for the thatcher’s children.

 

Taking a series of deep breaths, Cian flung his now unbarred door open and ran straight out into the fracas. He found himself hollering and aiming himself at the closest of the creatures with his sword brandished forcefully in front.

That beast saw the teeny human throw open the door. He spotted the darting streak of movement. The quick motion startled the massive creature. It involuntarily stepped back and stumbled hard into the starving creature chained next to it.

The force of their collision made the ground shudder. The beast that got hit choked on a half-chewed arm sticking part way out of its gullet and flailed around violently trying to clear its airway. It knocked over the behemoth behind it who then turned and attacked, not caring anymore who it attacked. Within seconds, nearly the whole of the chained creatures had devolved into a fight to the death.

Each blow shook the ground and the thatcher had difficultly standing. He did not for long as one of the monsters scooped him up in one massive fist, then tore him in half before gorging on his flesh. One by one, all the monsters turned and commenced tearing at each other as well as any living thing around them that they could reach. They made a terrible roar of anguish, blood spaying all around them and incensing them even further. The ground was a continuous tremor as they continued swirling around closer and closer to the riverbank. In the struggle, the thatcher’s home was destroyed; wooden boards snapping like twigs under the weight of several brutes as they flung each other about. Unable to free themselves from the chains still lashing them one to another, the heap of forms roiled and tumbled, destroying everything in its way.

Yet, here lay their downfall.

 

Just as morning streaks of light began to flicker though the fog and highlight the destroyed buildings, that mass of wrestling brutes stumbled and rolled down the riverbank, then into the once clear streaming water in the first light of day.

The river’s waters hissed, steamed, and boiled as it met raw flayed flesh of the tortured creatures. Each imprisoned beast found themselves screaming in agony worse than any they had yet known. They each struggled to get out of the water as their disappearing figures slowly disintegrated into a roiling steam of putrid thick stew in the sullied water. The vile taint spread quickly in both directions and eventually all the way to the lake and beyond.

They had been watching the attack on the villagers and the black riders quickly spotted their advantage; as one they swooped back out of foggy dawn. They took control again, with long poles and whips pushing the creatures still left on the bank into the river.

 

One person watched the riders beat the remaining creatures into the water that night, one person watched the water struggle that dissolved the monsters, one person watched the riders disappear again into the now glowing fog without a sound. Aoife, the thatcher’s children’s mother listened to the cries and bellows of the unimaginable nightmare grow quieter, and fade, and finally grow silent in the boiling river before her. She watched the silent riders evaporate once again into the mist as the buildings continued to crackle and burn around her broken home.

Her situation was dire. Trapped in her destroyed home under the main roof beam; she was crushed somewhere in the middle. She felt the damage in her body. Strength was leaving her, but she could not, would not die and leave her children alone under the floorboards. She called out to them over and over (you can still hear her cries in October each year if you listen closely in the fog at midnight).

 

At last, her littles heard the calls and gathered all the courage they had. The small girl pushed hard on the hatch with her frail shoulder until it finally opened. Then she lifted her brother up to the floor above them. It was time to leave the safety of their damp hole; they could hear their mom calling them.

Coming out of hiding did not sooth their nightmares. The whole of their life was gone. Their home had been flattened. Their father was missing, and their mother lay trapped and dying. No one else lived. In the cold light of morning when the fog finally lifted, they bravely checked every building; their chubby children’s fingers digging at the rubble of their friend’s homes.

There was no one.

 

********

It was an Avatar explorer who finally wandered into the area a day later to find complete destruction and two small filthy children protecting their trapped mother from a group of attacking wolves with sticks they had made into torches and stones that they were throwing at the closest wolves.

Making fast work of the wolves, the explorer rescued those wretched children, but their mother did not survive the attempt to lift the beam from her failing body. Before she died, Aoife struggled painfully to whisper what she knew of the grim tale to her saviour and to extract a promise that the explorer would care for her children before her life energy ran out. After the promise, that valiant mother expired in her children’s arms. It was the best she could do.

Of all the villagers, only that one small girl and her little brother had survived the night. They were part of carnage that the new Avatar could not fathom. Here they were, cradling their mother’s bloodied head, starved, and streaked with blood, snot, and dirt, in the rubble of the thatcher’s destroyed hovel. The Avatar arranged for their transport to an orphanage in a nearby village and left them there in the care of a not very expressive head matron. They left a bag of gold to pay for the childrens’ upbringing but the children never saw the Avatar again. Neither child spoke of that night in their lifetime; only staring blindly in horror, trembling, and pale at the mention of wolves or Jade Garden.

 

Storytellers through the decades in Novia know not whence the creatures and riders had come, nor where they were going but many whisper to each other that the Obsidian Mages of Mistrendur must have made yet another fatal mistake during their spellcasting; one with consequences that they could not be controlled. This was not the first time the island had seen vile creatures in their lands brought to life by means only Obsidians know even if it had been a few ages since any were known locally. One lasting effect of the battle in Jade Garden ever after that evening is that at the beginning of October the waters of the river all the way to the lake beyond turn fetid. Then every end of October just as faithfully and mysteriously, the water returns to fresh.

 

None of the Avatars and Mistrendians dared rebuild near Jade Garden for almost twenty years for fear of the water cycle and the possibility of an attack happening again but, as time passed so did fear. Eventually people started gathering at the Jade Gardens’ river crossing area again. Few would build exactly where once a year ghosts of burned out husks of buildings appeared in the fall along with the fetid waters. Instead, over time the river’s bank has became a haven for fishing. Fishers have come from as far away as Elysium Island to try their luck during both fetid and freshwater seasons. You can see their camps along the riverbank as you walk down Thatcher’s Lane.

Eventually people stayed. They built a fine sturdy stone bridge. What these newcomers have found (to their delight), is that what had been barely arid land in the distant past was now fertile and lush soil enriched by the changing water cycle. These fetid cycles refreshed and revitalized the soil each season and brought with it the nutrients for continued growth; enough to sustain new plants and animals not formerly seen in the area. After years, this opulent vegetation became the basis of the beautiful gardens that now screen each settled plot from another.

 

Now-a-days, the farms and gardens are taken care of by the Jade Dragons guild. Their intrepid governor and head gardener, Mal Hari, has sculpted the most beautiful garden in all of Mistrendur. Slowly there are more and more settlers and travelers finding these land for themselves, roaming through the village to fish, or visiting the tea house to hear stories of the Thatcher of Mistrendur from one of the few locals who can be persuaded to tell it.

Still, each October the water changes to fetid, and the newer townsfolk say “It’s always been that way” to each other without really knowing that a simple thatcher had thrown himself bravely into deadly peril in order to save those he loved and he changed the world with his action; changed it enough that no one ever saw those mysterious creatures again in lands that continued to be renewed each year by the fetid waters where the thatcher stood his ground.

These days and far away, Cian and Aoife’s children Fiona and Oscar Thatcher lived on, never forgetting what their parents had given up for them to survive. They, too, understood that each honorable action taken by the humblest of people has meaning and power that reverberates into the future in ways that bring growth and life to the world.

May you each find Love, Courage, and Truth in your own world and your own life.

 

~And the crowd cried out for more!~
~Time Lord~
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